The Ice Wine Cometh

Alan Richman samples Canada’s finest frozen grapes

Ice wine is made from grapes that remain on vines, half-dead and half-alive, while summer passes
and cold settles in. Storms rage. Fungi attack. Birds gorge. It has the makings of a movie: Cluster’s
Last Stand. Somehow, the grapes survive, until one joyous night the long-awaited hard frost arrives.
At that moment, the water turns to ice crystals, leaving behind a concentrated juice heavy with sugar,
acidity and extract. The effort that goes into pressing these frozen grapes is remarkable—think of
the pressure needed to flatten junkyard automobiles. The resulting nectar is intensely rich, extremely
sweet and decidedly expensive. Half-bottles of ice wine usually sell for more than $50, which actually
isn’t so much for something that doesn’t taste like anything else. Since 1984 the Inniskillin Winery on
the Niagara peninsula of Canada has been producing an admirable and occasionally magnificent ice
wine, an assessment that should surprise anyone who has tasted any other wine made from the vidal
blanc grape. Inniskillin’s celebrated 1989 vintage, astoundingly complex, with hints of honey and
nuances of litchi, was awarded the Grand Prix d’Honneur at Vinexpo in Bordeaux in 1991. Translated
from the French, that means it was the best. The current release, the 1997 oak-aged vidal blanc
(about $65 a half-bottle), is lighter and less dramatic than the ’89 but clearly related. Inniskillin’s ice
wines, already among the best sweet wines made in North America, are not yet a threat to the magnificent
Riesling ice wines of Germany, but give them time. Because of weather conditions, ice-wine
production is rare in Germany, while Canadians get to practice almost every year. As Donald Ziraldo,
cofounder of Inniskillin, points out, “Germany is not blessed with our cold.”